Iran’s principal policy is to thwart the sanctions’ impact, Amir-Abdollahian said on Friday, which does not contract bids aimed at lifting the “cruel and unilateral” restrictions.
The foreign minister said Iran would never tie its interests to China, the United States, Russia, and Europe, but would cooperate with any country in the East and the West that meets its national interests based on mutual respect.
Amir-Abdollahian said European countries should respect the noble, civilized, and cultured Iranian nation since mutual respect would benefit both sides.
Pointing to Washington’s move to waive sanctions to allow the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar, Amir-Abdollahian said the money would be released within the framework of SWIFT, the global provider of secure financial messaging services.
The top diplomat said that based on the agreement reached between Tehran and Washington, Iran can use the money to meet its needs.
On September 11, US President Joe Biden’s administration issued a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets from South Korea to Qatar with no concern about the sanctions.
The report released early Tuesday said the Biden administration has also agreed to release five Iranian citizens held in the United States. The five detainees were identified as Mehrdad Moein Ansari, Kambiz Attar Kashani, Reza Sarhangpour Kofrani, Amin Hassanzadeh, and Kaveh Lotfollah Afrasiabi.
In an exclusive interview with the American broadcast television network NBC on Tuesday, President Ebrahim Raeisi underscored Iran’s full authority on its recently-released assets, saying it is the Islamic Republic that decides how to spend the funds and that the money will be spent “wherever we need it.”
On Friday, the United States, the UK, and the European Union sanctioned dozens of Iranian individuals and entities, which they accused of either suppression or misrepresentation of last year’s unrest.
Later in the day, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani denounced the sanctions as “unconstructive behavior,” which was not in line with the Western countries’ own interests.
The West, he added, rather had to adopt “a new policy [that was] based on respect for the great and civilized Iranian nation, the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty, and the two sides’ common security and interests.”
The unrest erupted throughout the country last September following the unfortunate death earlier that month of a young girl named Mahsa Amini. Amini fainted at a police station and was pronounced dead days later at a Tehran hospital. Relevant investigations attributed her death to a medical condition, dismissing allegations that she had been beaten by police forces.
Iran says the 2022 riots were the result of foreign-backed elements exploiting the incident.
Referring to the Western sanctions and accusations faulting Iran’s riot response, Kan’ani asserted that, when it comes to the provision of public security for the country, the Iranian people and authorities “would not be influenced by the Western parties’ malicious propaganda and measures.”
He, meanwhile, reminded the Western states of their own dismal rights records, identifying them as “countries, which continually perpetrate the most severe instances of violence against their own citizens, especially women, and also minorities, people of color, aboriginals, and migrants.”
These countries also never muster the courage to truly protest and condemn the “child-killing Zionist regime’s daily crimes,” the spokesman noted.
Such states, therefore, “have no right to shed crocodile tears for the Iranian nation,” he added.
Kan’ani concluded his remarks by pointing out that the Western states’ provision of support and safe haven for anti-Iran terrorist groups, such as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which is guilty of killing thousands of Iranians, “belies their claim of supporting the Iranian people’s rights.”
Kim’s trip to Russia, highlighted by a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, has sparked Western concerns about an arms alliance
Published Date – 08:10 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
File Photo
Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was to travel to the far eastern port city of Vladivostok to see Russia’s Pacific fleet, while his official media back home said Saturday that he was “deeply impressed” by a factory producing the most advanced Russian warplanes.
Kim’s trip to Russia, highlighted by a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, has sparked Western concerns about an arms alliance in which North Korean munitions fuel Putin’s war in Ukraine and Russian technologies advance the threat posed by Kim’s military nuclear program.
After meeting with Putin at Russia’s main spaceport, a location that communicated Kim’s desire for Russian assistance in his efforts to acquire space-based reconnaissance assets and missile technologies, North Korea’s leader reappeared Friday in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur for a visit to a plant producing Russia’s Su-57 fighter jets.
Experts have said potential military cooperation between the countries could include efforts to modernize North Korea’s outdated air force, which relies on warplanes sent from the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Kim’s plans to see Russian naval ships in Vladivostok could be another hint at what he wants from Russia, possibly in exchange for supplying munitions to refill Putin’s declining reserves as his invasion of Ukraine becomes a drawn-out war of attrition.
Kim in recent months has emphasized the need to strengthen his navy to counter the advanced naval assets of the United States, which has been expanding its combined military exercises with South Korea to counter the North’s growing threat.
Analysts say Kim’s focus on naval strength could be driven by ambitions to obtain sophisticated technologies for ballistic missile submarines and nuclear-propelled submarines as well as to initiate joint naval exercises between Russia and North Korea.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that during his visit to the aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Kim expressed “sincere regard” for what he described as Russia’s rapidly advancing aviation technologies, which he said were “outpacing the outside potential threats,” a comment Russian media also highlighted.
North Korean state media have been reporting Kim’s activities in Russia a day late while crafting the details to meet government propaganda purposes.
Russia’s Cabinet on Friday released a video showing Kim on an elevated platform looking at the cockpit of an Su-57 while listening to its pilot. Kim also beamed and clapped his hands when an Su-35 fighter jet landed after a demonstration flight.
During a luncheon hosted by Russian officials, Kim’s top military officer, army Marshal Ri Pyong Chol, said his leader’s visit to the facility “added another glorious page” to the relations between the countries, KCNA said. Kim’s delegation also includes the top commanders of North Korea’s air force and navy.
Putin on Friday briefed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko about his summit with Kim. During their meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Lukashenko suggested Belarus could join Russia and North Korea in “three-way cooperation.” Kim’s trip to Russia, his first since April 2019 when he met Putin in Vladivostok, came days after he attended a ceremony at a North Korean military shipyard where the country unveiled a purported nuclear attack submarine.
State media claimed it is capable of launching tactical nuclear weapons from underwater. But South Korea’s military expressed doubt about the operational capabilities of the sub, which was the result of reshaping an existing submarine to install missile launch tubes.
Kim has announced goals to acquire nuclear-propelled submarines, which can quietly travel long distances and approach enemy shores to deliver strikes, a key asset in his efforts to build a viable nuclear arsenal that could threaten the United States. Analysts say such capacities would be unfeasible for the North without external assistance.
Putin on Friday reiterated that Russia would abide by UN sanctions, some of which ban North Korea from exporting or importing any weapons. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov separately said that no agreements on bilateral military cooperation were signed after the Putin-Kim meeting Wednesday.
Experts say North Korea and Russia aren’t likely to publicize any deals on weapons to avoid stronger international criticism. Kim, whose visit to Russia is his first foreign trip since the COVID-19 pandemic, has been eager to boost the visibility of his partnerships with Moscow and Beijing as he attempts to break out of international isolation and insert Pyongyang in a united front against Washington. Some South Korean experts say that Kim could also pursue a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In another sign of the North’s post-pandemic opening, KCNA said Saturday that a team of North Korean athletes departed from the country’s capital, Pyongyang, to participate in the Asian Games starting next week in Hangzhou, China. South Korea’s government says around 190 North Korean athletes are registered for the event.
Since last year, the US has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia, many of them likely copies of Soviet-era munitions. South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia have already been used in Ukraine.
Some analysts question how much Russia would be willing to share its sensitive weapons technology in exchange for North Korean conventional arms. But others say that is now a possibility to consider as Russia becomes desperate to refill its drained reserves.
After a meeting in Seoul discussing the allies’ nuclear deterrence strategies, US and South Korean officials on Friday stepped up their condemnation of the recent moves by Russia and North Korea.
Sasha Baker, the US acting undersecretary of defense for policy, said Washington will continue to “try to identify and expose and counter Russian attempts to acquire military equipment, again, to prosecute their illegal war on Ukraine.” South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin said Washington and Seoul, while increasing security cooperation, would ensure that Moscow faces consequences if it helps advance North Korea’s weapons programme.
The US has started the phase 1 clinical trial of a new investigational universal flu vaccine candidate
Published Date – 10:00 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
Representational Image
Los Angeles: The US has started the phase 1 clinical trial of a new investigational universal flu vaccine candidate, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced.
The trial, sponsored by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), will evaluate the investigational vaccine, named FluMos-v2, for safety and its ability to elicit an immune response, Xinhua news agency reported.
The vaccine candidate was designed by researchers at NIAID’s Vaccine Research Centre. It is designed to induce antibodies against many different influenza virus strains by displaying part of the influenza virus hemagglutinin protein in repeating patterns on self-assembling nanoparticle scaffolds. Exposure to these harmless fragments of virus proteins prepares the immune system to recognise and fight the actual virus.
When tested in animals, the experimental vaccine resulted in robust antibody responses, according to the NIH on Friday. The new clinical trial is expected to enroll 24 healthy volunteers, aged between 18 to 50 years, who will receive two intramuscular injections of the FluMos-v2 vaccine candidate.
These injections will be given 16 weeks apart. For 40 weeks after their first vaccination, participants will receive regular follow-up phone calls and examinations to track their responses to the experimental vaccine. Most seasonal flu vaccines are designed to train the immune system to defend against three or four different common strains of flu, but a “universal” influenza vaccine might someday provide protection against many more, according to the NIH.
On September 11, a 17-year-old Sikh student was subjected to either a “beer or pepper spray” attack by another teenage student as he disembarked from a public transit bus on his way home.
The 17-year-old Sikh student was either “beer or pepper sprayed” by another teenage student after exiting a public transit bus on his way home on September 11.
The Indian student was assaulted at the intersection of Rutland Rd S and Robson Rd E in Canada’s British Columbia, according to a statement by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In a post shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Consulate General of India in Vancouver stated, “@cgivancouver strongly condemns assault on an Indian national in Kelowna and requests Canadian authorities to investigate the incident and take prompt action against the perpetrators.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a statement said, “On September 11th, 2023, just before 4:00pm, Kelowna RCMP were dispatched to a pepper spray incident at the intersection of Rutland Rd S and Robson Rd E. Officers determined a 17-year old Sikh student was either bear or pepper sprayed by another teenaged male after exiting a public transit bus on his way home.”
It said there was an altercation on the bus prior to the beer spray incident which resulted in those involved being directed off the bus. Police said that several witness statements have been obtained and the teenaged suspect has been identified.
“After exiting the bus, a second incident occurred where the suspect male deployed bear spray on the victim,” it said.
The statement further said, “Bystanders called the police who attended and are actively investigating this incident. Several witness statements have been obtained and the teenaged suspect in this incident has already been identified.”
According to the statement, investigators are still collecting CCTV evidence and other relevant information including taking steps to determine the motivation behind crime.
Speaking to CBC News, Kelowna City Councillor Mohini Singh said that the student had only been in the city for around five months and spoke little English.
She termed the attack “totally unacceptable.” She said that the student is in a “state of shock” and is “absolutely traumatized.”
“He loves going to school. He has a great rapport with his teachers. No problem there,” she said. “He is absolutely traumatized. He’s in a state of shock,” CBC News quoted Mohini Singh as saying.
Mohini Singh said she met the teenager, and that he was hardly able to lift his head from his chest. She said, “This has sent shockwaves through the community,” the councillor said. “The Indo-Canadian community is shocked by this … this is absolutely despicable.”
It’s the second attack on a Sikh student in the central Interior city this year. On March 17, another Indian Sikh student Gagandeep Singh was also attacked, according to CBC News report. At the time, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said investigators were carrying out consultations with their hate crimes unit.
The BBC reports that the request was part of a collection of older court documents from the case, which were made public on Friday.
Published Date – 10:02 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
Washington: Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the federal election meddling case against former US President Donald Trump, has asked District Judge Tanya Chutkan to place him under a gag order, limiting on what he can publicly comment .
The request was among a slew of older court documents from the case that were released on Friday, reports the BBC.
Prosecutors have said that their proposed order — which they never refer to as a “gag order” — is “a narrow, well defined restriction” that is necessary to prevent disinformation, threats and “prejudicing” the case.
If approved, it would ban Trump from making statements “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating”.
“The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case — to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this District, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” the prosecutors wrote in their filing.
Chutkan, an Obama appointee overseeing the criminal case in Washington, D.C., is yet to make a decision on the request, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, Trump on Friday blasted the special counsel’s motion in a Truth Social post on Friday, calling Smith “deranged”.
“So, I’m campaigning for President against an incompetent person who has WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent, & I am not allowed to COMMENT? They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK?
Addressing a dinner for the group Concerned Women for America in the capital on Friday night, he said prosecutors wanted to take away his right to speak freely and openly, reports the BBC.
“Did you see today that deranged Jack Smith … wants to take away my rights under the First Amendment, wants to take away my right of speaking freely and openly?” Trump said.
“These people are sick and they want to silence me because I will never let them silence you… But in the end they’re not after me, they’re after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way,” he told the group of around 300 socially conservative evangelical Christian women.
Trump, the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces mounting legal troubles.
He has been criminally indicted four times, including in this federal investigation into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.
Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravan, has warned that his country will respond “decisively” to any threat or unlawful act against it by Israel
Published Date – 08:50 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
Tehran:Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravan, has warned that his country will respond “decisively” to any threat or unlawful act against it by Israel, the media reported.
Iravani made the remarks on Friday in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President of the Security Council for the month of September Ferit Hoxha on Thursday, reacting to recent remarks by David Barnea, head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Barnea recently accused Iran of “having directed more than 20 attacks against Israel over the past year” and threatened to “take military actions against Iranians if any Israeli or Jew would be harmed in such attacks”.
Iravani denounced Barnea’s claims as “baseless,” adding that these provocative remarks are in flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter, Xinhua news agency reported.
The envoy said Iran resolutely stresses its legitimate and inherent rights, based on international law and the UN Charter, to give a decisive response to any threat and illegal act by Israel against the country.
He reaffirmed that Iran spares no effort to defend its national security and interests and protect its people. The Iranian envoy also called on the UN Security Council to fulfill its duties and condemn Israel’s “hostile rhetoric and destructive activities”.
The rise in the rate brings the price of petrol to PKR 333.38 per litre and the rate of high-speed diesel is PKR 329.18 per litre
Published Date – 09:10 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
Islamabad: The Pakistan caretaker government on Friday announced another hike in the prices of petrol by Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 26.02 per litre and high-speed diesel by PKR 17.34 per litre, Pakistan-based Dawn reported.
The rise in the rate brings the price of petrol to PKR 333.38 per litre and the rate of high-speed diesel is PKR 329.18 per litre. Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance announced the increase in the price of petrol and high-speed diesel, the report said.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance said that the decision was taken due to the increasing trend of petrol prices in the international market. No revision of price was mentioned regarding the price of kerosene or light diesel oil, according to Dawn report.
The rise in the price of petrol and high-speed diesel after the previous massive hike on September 1, when the Pakistan interim government increased fuel prices by up to PKR 18 per litre. The rise in petroleum prices had come after similar hikes by the Pakistan interim government on August 15.
Petrol is mostly used in private transport, small vehicles, rickshaws and two-wheelers and has a direct impact on the budget of the middle and lower-middle class.
The majority of the transport sector operates on high-speed diesel. Its price is considered highly inflationary as it is mostly used in heavy transport vehicles, trains and agricultural engines like trucks, buses, tractors, tube wells and threshers, Dawn reported.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s inflation rate remained over the target in August at 27.4 per cent as reforms outlined as requirements for an IMF loan make it more difficult to control price pressures, ARY News reported citing the official data released on September 1.
After the avoidance of a sovereign debt default in July due to a USD 3 billion loan programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Pakistan is on a difficult road to economic recovery under a caretaker administration.
Reforms related to the bailout, such as loosening import limits and demanding the removal of subsidies, have already fuelled annual inflation, which increased to a record 38.0 per cent in May.
In addition, interest rates were increased, and the rupee dropped to record lows. The currency dropped 6.2 per cent last month, according to ARY News. The inflation rate for food remained high at 38.5 per cent in August, according to figures from Pakistan’s statistics department, despite a minor decline from July’s 28.3 per cent rate.
Finland will close its borders to passenger cars registered in Russia, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press statement
Published Date – 08:30 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
Helsinki: As of midnight, Finland will close its borders to passenger cars registered in Russia, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press statement.
“In the future, only EU citizens permanently residing in Russia or their family members, diplomats or equivalent individuals, or people travelling for humanitarian reasons, can enter Finland with a passenger car registered in Russia,” the statement said on Friday.
With this move, Finland complies with the guidelines of the European Commission issued on September 8, prohibiting the entry of passenger cars registered in Russia into the European Union, Xinhua news agency reported.
The decision aims to prevent Russian citizens from circumventing sanctions imposed on the country, the Ministry said. Cars that are already in Finland and have Russian license plates must leave the country by March 16, 2024, the Ministry added.
The move follows similar decisions made by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania earlier this week to bar the entry of vehicles registered in Russia.
Israeli military has said it launched air raids on Gaza after clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police at the border wounded at least 12 Palestinians
Published Date – 08:20 AM, Sat – 16 September 23
Gaza: The Israeli military has said it launched air raids on Gaza after clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police at the border wounded at least 12 Palestinians. No casualties were reported in the raids so far, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Friday in a statement that the aircraft struck a military post belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group ruling Gaza, after a “violent riot” broke out at the border between Israel and the coastal enclave.
During the standoff, explosive devices and grenades were thrown across the border fence toward IDF soldiers, leading the Israeli soldiers to use riot dispersal measures at the Palestinians, the IDF added. No IDF soldiers were injured in the clash, it noted.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry earlier said that at least 12 Palestinians were wounded by dispersal means and even live bullets fired by the Israeli soldiers. Palestinian security sources told Xinhua that the clash took place between hundreds of young Palestinians rallying to voice solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
On Friday, a Palestinian rally held to denounce Israel’s settlement expansion grew to a clash with Israeli soldiers in the village of Qaryut, northern West Bank, leaving four Palestinians wounded by rubber bullets fired to disperse them, according to a statement issued by the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Gaza and the West Bank have witnessed unabated tensions between Palestinians and Israelis this year amid long-stalled peace talks.
